It's christmas eve, there's snow falling. I'm back at my apartment wondering what to do now. No hometown to go to.. well not for now anyway.

I'll come up with something to do tomorrow I guess.

My mom came out to meet me. We talked, she explained why she argued against my being allowed in. The logic's solid so I can't really complain. My dad would have come out to talk with me too but he's already getting into arguments with the other ranchers on how to take care of the silly amount of cattle Coalinga now has.

anyway care package aqcuired, contents are
Weatherby Vanguard rifle in 5.56/.223 + 500 rounds of ammunition
Weatherby SA-12 shotgun + 250 rounds of birdshot + the bucket of oddball modded loads I made a few years ago for my brothers.  I'll need to sort out the confetti rounds.

A few pounds of powder and an assorted number of primers

It hit me later that I'm an idiot and there's a bunch of reloading supplies back at my apartment. I guess my mind didn't make the connection the first time I saw them probably a month ago?

I also got a couple canteens and notes from people that want me to act as mailman for them.

Really..it kinda pisses me off that these people don't want me in the community and turn around and want me to deliver their mail. Not sure what I'll do.. Might use them for fire tinder or something, or deliver the notes.. not going to be the freakin mailman forever though.

News is, in short. they aren't going to let me in.

In the long it's got to do with their concept of letting outsiders in. Right now they know they can sustain the population until law and order has resumed. Sounds like my own mother argued against letting me in on the grounds that she didn't want to deal with some of the other kids that were outside the valley when it all happened.

Anyway sticking around here till tomorrow, the mayor came out to deliver the news and said something about some of the people in town organizing a small care package for me.

Got the radio working now, can hear Auberry radio, and a couple other stations, one of them obviously U.S. military giving out directions to survivors..... It gives people hope I guess.

It's outright snowing now and getting colder. Odd since Coalinga's always been a bit under the snowline in even the coldest winters, and when it did snow it was more like sleet, but this is undeniably snow.

And the rain's now turned to snowy slush and temperature's dropping fast.

Someone from town rode up on a horse. Climbed up on the gate, saw me, I waved and they went off on one of the gate guys. Sounded angry, couldn't really hear too well , I was a bit of a distance from the gate following a rabbit.

After a while he came out to greet me. Turns out he was one of my classmates when I went through high school and he apologized and explained the situation.

As soon as they knew it was actually happening and saw the flashpoints on the horizon, some of the ranchers started herding all the cattle from Harris Ranch across the highway overpass and into the valley, and a public meeting was held, and it was decided that they wouldn't let any outsiders in until some form of larger government had been re-established.

He's going to go back and bring my appearance up at the town council meeting tomorrow night. There's a lot of people like me, away at work or at college with Coalinga as their home, that were outside when they made that decision, and I'm probably not the only one that made it through.

Spent the rest of the morning messing with the radio on the jeep to see if I could get it working again. No dice so far.

Still waiting out in the hills.. I don't think they actually told anyone in town I'm out here and are waiting to see if I'll go away.

Saw some kit foxes....if they're so endangered you'd think the end of the world would have wiped them out or something.

Kinda drizzly today and yesterday.

Well that was a "warm" reception to my home town.

"Warm" as in met with a shotgun at a steel barricade across one of the two roads into the valley. Kinda waiting out here in the jeep for a while till someone confirms I am from Coalinga....

Well besides that it was an interesting trip across the valley. I think it was a good idea of mine to strap a Geiger counter outside on the hood and have one inside sitting on the dash.

Can see a ton of smoke to the north from Fresno...I'm worried that they might've been hit directly and the town's still burning.

Passed on a note to an officer in Parlier who flagged me down when he saw I had a running vehicle, said something about the local gangs being more cooperative now that the world had ended.

Selma was a ghost-town didn't see anyone there.

Hanford was the same as Selma, though Hanford was the site of one of those Higher capacity Bunkers like in Los Angeles and Bakersfield. I might come back through and see if I can find the entrance there and see if they have anything they want the outside world to know.

Leemoore was relatively safe, though most anything electronic there was fried. Kinda hot with radiation though, but  some of the people there said it had been an airburst and the NAS base had been hit with conventional weapons after the nuke went off. The navy's more of less got Leemoore handle'd pretty well.

I did mention their fire crew was present and accounted for, and the serviceman I spoke to said he'd forward it up the chain of command.

Anyway back to Coalinga.

Managed to bypass the I-5 on an old overpass, and a bunch of twisting roads till I got into the foothills. A bit past an area called "stinky Hollow" I hit the roadblock.. well it was more of a wall in one of the roadbed cuts. The guy there called me an outsider and to "git the hell gone"
ave him my address..
....Waiting patiently in the hopes someone who recognizes my name hears about me.. gave them my address and my family is kinda known in town. He did say he was impressed an outsider knew all the big names in town but he wasn't convinced and the other people at the gate were CO's that I didn't recognize.

Oh well. All I can do is browse the internet  and twiddle my thumbs until someone lets me in.

It's been a while since I last posted. got wrapped up in some stuff Sunday and I ended up driving around part of the central valley as a courier.

On Sunday I was woken up by knocking on the door. The local PD finally came out of the woodwork and are attempting to restore law and order. One of the officers was walking around this part of town checking every house and apartment for people still in town. All in all there's about thirty people that didn't leave when the sirens went off here. Because I had a working vehicle and it would take a bit to get another one operating, I was asked to shuttle one of the officers over to  Orange Cove, Dinuba, Orosi and cutler to transfer messages back and forth. So that ate up Sunday, Monday and Tuesday. Though I got to get in contact with a couple of my friends from the college who had come back into their respective towns, they had holed up with their families in the strip mine/bunker up top of Jessie Morrow Mountain.

Today I got to rest a little because the police, in combination with a couple of rednecks and an old mechanic in Orosi got an older army Deuce and a half running and are using that now. It's burning a lot of oil and I hope they find something better.

Tomorrow I'm going to try and go across to Coalinga, though it has been asked of me that I attempt delivery of messages to the various police departments across the valley between here and there.

I'll attempt it, though no promises.